CAP 17 CAP 6 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment 1

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Imanalt

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My a couple thoughts on things:

Gravity: Well, I dont really know how we could build a mon that abuses gravity better than landorus, realistically ou is aggressive enough that the buff to spikes/tspikes isnt enough, so were looking at purely the useful offensive things of gravity. It gives a temporary boost worth less than +1 (blizzard vs ice beam is less than +1, etc), but this is really not very useful. Then it gives a boost to ground moves in removing their immunities, but again this is just not that useful. There already are pokemon built perfectly to abuse gravity that learn it, and yet they still essentially never run it because its just not worth a spot.

Explosion: Again, i don't think we could make explosion very good. Its resisted by about a quarter of ou, and a lot of top pokemon, and just isnt that strong. So basically up until the very late game, theyll have an easy switch in to it, and since this mon should be built around this move, it would be absurdly predictable. Yes, we can try to make it so we can combat the things that switch in on explosion, but even then when it comes down to it, explosion is incredibly prediction heavy. the problem with explosion is how costly it is to get it wrong. Its an extreme risk, and yet its still not even particularly likely to pick up a KO with correct prediction unless we have great attack, and if we have great attack you can almost certainly ko with some other move.
 
I think that Explosion and Healing Wish seem like the best ideas so far. A good user of these moves can shift the momentum of the battle and let us see if the suicide/self-sacrifice strategy is still viable in 5th gen.

I don't feel that other things that have been recommended such as Trick Room, Tailwind, partial trapping moves, Inferno, Zap Cannon, Dynamic Punch, Thief, Covet, Odor Sleuth, Bide, or Work Up bring anything new to the metagame.

Gravity, Recycle, Doom Desire, Future Sight, and Reflect Type all seem new and interesting but extremely difficult to make viable.
 
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Stratos

Banned deucer.
Just because some Pokemon that use Explosion have the surprise factor means that the move has unexplored potential?
That wasn't my point at all; my point was that if Explosion is as common as you claim, then why can i not think of a single Pokemon in OU that I expect to run it?

What is exactly that we don't know about this move?
How to make it work in Gen V OU, since nothing we know of does.

Not to mention that many Pokemon use it successfully in literally all tiers. Lead Forretress, lead Azelf, and TR Bronzong use it in OU, Genesect uses it on its best set in Ubers, Golem uses it in NU etc. We know what this move is capable of, we know the reasons it is used, and there are already many Pokemon that use it to a successful extend.
Booming forry, Azelf, Zong? I'm sorry, are you sure you're participating in a fifth gen CAP?

17:10 Pwnemon: !usage forretress ou
17:10 TIBot: #19 in OU | Usage: 9.58615% | Raw count: 157,596 | Weight: 0.645762336007
17:10 Pwnemon: !usage forretress moves
17:10 TIBot: ...| Explosion 12.007% |...
17:10 Pwnemon: !usage azelf ou
17:10 TIBot: #83 in OU | Usage: 1.40380% | Raw count: 22,337 | Weight: 0.667282835131
17:10 Pwnemon: !usage azelf moves ou
17:10 TIBot: ...| Explosion 44.595% |...
17:10 TIBot: #60 in OU | Usage: 2.19330% | Raw count: 36,245 | Weight: 0.642356422021
17:10 Pwnemon: !usage bronzong moves ou
17:10 TIBot: ...| Explosion 34.476% |...

Given your three examples added together, we get 2.53% usage. I won't even address the other examples because they hardly tell us how to effectively use explosion in OU.

For kicks i ctrl+f'd literally every ou pokemon's analysis (even the ones who didn't learn it, to see if they needed to watch out for it!) for "explosion" and found these mentions: Cloyster's OO, Forry's OO, Gengar's OO, Magnezone's OO, Metagross's OO, and a secondary slash on Ferro's CB set. (Notably, it was not mentioned at all for Lando-T, who has 145 Atk and the move, or Heatran, which has five different sets with the move in DPP)

17:14 Pwnemon: !usage ferrothorn moves ou
17:14 TIBot: Leech Seed 83.975% | Power Whip 70.537% | Stealth Rock 58.259% | Spikes 53.286% | Gyro Ball 40.783% | Thunder Wave 39.701% | Protect 35.011% | Other 18.448%

So, no, explosion is not as understood in gen V as you would have us believe. It's very much unexplored territory.

I see nothing worth exploring with this move. Not to mention that not all moves that are not used a lot in OU aren't used because they lack the proper users. Some moves are just bad or mediocre and this is why they don't see a lot of usage. This is the case with Explosion too.
I'd just like to point out the beautiful irony right here of you claiming (without basis) that explosion is so awful that nothing should ever consider basing a set around it, yet it's also far too ubiquitous to even consider for this project because everyone and their mother runs it and we know everything about it.

It is a mediocre and situational move that has a few uses but nothing more to let it become a staple in OU.
The concept isn't to completely change the face of the OU metagame, it's simply to create a pokemon that succeeds thanks in part to an underused move. Would you call Trick Room an OU staple? How about Disable? Yet there are pokemon that run effective sets with each of these moves.

Not all unused moves (and Explosion isn't even really unused, at least the way i see it) have unexplored potential, some are just mediocre or bad.
Yet you support recycle. Let's just let that sink in for a second.

Doom Desire is a dreadful move.

Honestly, I hate to go on a huge rant about a single move, but I actually can't believe the momentum this move is getting. Trouble is, nobody is really analysing the move properly. We're all being brainwashed by the idea of a high base power move that has poor distribution and a unique effect and we're not actually looking at how it works.

Let's break down exactly how this move is going to work in reality.
  • Doom Desire will take 2 turns to hit
  • In those 2 turns, the user can't use Doom Desire again and the opponent is free to switch
  • Steel is a dreadful offensive type. Water, Steel, Electric and Fire all resist it. We see plenty of those types in OU: I'd wager the average team would have at least 2 Steel resits, without even trying. The only types it hits for Super Effective damage are Ice and Rock. They're some of the rarest types in OU
  • Considering all this, the odds of getting a Super Effective hit with Doom Desire are abysmal. Even getting a neutral hit is going to require careful play that goes way beyond 1 turn prediction. It's very much in your opponents hands (and as Birkal rather eloquently described, this is something we should avoid).
  • While you wait for Doom Desire to hit, what do you do?
  • Let's assume we're using a Steel type so we can get STAB. Do we not give it any other STABs to encourage Doom Desire? In that case, what the heck is it meant to do while waiting for Doom Desire to hit? But if we give it another viable Steel STAB, then what's to stop it running it over Doom Desire? Or are we wasting 2 slots on the same type? None of these options work.
  • No abilities assist Doom Desire specifically. No other moves assist it specifically. There's nothing we can do to make it a better option than Flash Cannon. Frankly, I'd rather run Hidden Power Steel.
I'm trying to keep an open mind, so if someone can actually explain to me how this can be competitively viable, please feel free to. But right now I just feel like everyone is overlooking this moves competitive inadequacies because it's rare and "cool".
This is a fair question, because I don't think anyone's truly explained how Doom Desire works. The problem with wallbreakers in general is simple: your opponent doesn't have to switch in the wall you want to break. I actually love the fact that Doom Desire is walled by the common "bulky" types of Water and Steel because it plays right into the hands of the Doom Desire user: you draw them in because they don't want to lose a Pokemon to the Doom Desire, and then that pokemon has to tank another hit at the same time, probably breaking them. Aside from that, it also puts nice, wholesome pressure on the opponent. Consider this scenario:

I'm playing against standard balanced Sand team with a LO heatran, with one difference: this heatran has Doom Desire. My opponent's team is Celebi / Ferrothorn / Keldeo / Tyranitar / Scizor / Terrakion (and while I'm no OU expert and I came up with that in roughly ten seconds, I would consider it to be a fair team).
  • I bring in Heatran as Celebi uses recover because that's all Celebi ever does
  • Celebi U-turns out to Terrak to take the fire blast; I use Doom Desire
  • Terrak CCs as I Protect
  • The opponent literally cannot keep all of his Pokemon alive if I Fire Blast right here. Celebi, Ferrothorn, and Scizor can all take a Doom Desire, but will crumple to the Fire Blast. Terrak can KO Heatran (or at least hope to KO it if i don't switch) but Doom Desire is obviously a KO. Tyranitar can easily tank a Fire Blast, but it's more than handily KOed by my Doom Desire. Keldeo could take either hit separately from 70%, but the two combined are enough to just barely KO—even before Rocks, or sand.
Of course this is an overly idealistic scenario. Furthermore, you may be thinking, "well, so what, if your tran had flash cannon, you could have KOed the Terrakion and never had to worry about mind-games at all!" Well, then, consider this alternate scenario.
  • I bring in Heatran as Celebi uses recover because that's all celebi ever does.
  • Ballsy Celebi player thinks he's cool and uses SR instead of U-turn; I use Doom Desire
  • Even if he knows my set right now, his shit is entirely sunk at this point. He can go to Keldeo, Terrakion, or Tyranitar to tank the impending Fire Blast, or sacrifice one of his three other Pokemon. No matter what he does on this turn, the next turn will be a repeat of the one mentioned above, where me using fire blast will only not result in a death if i miss.
Whereas if I had had flash cannon there, Celebi would have taken like 35% and he could have gone to Terrak the next turn and forced me out. As you can see, Doom Desire creates neat scenarios of pressure.

"That's not fair, Pwne!" you say, "you picked six pokemon that were ohkoed by doom desire + fire blast!" OK, let's imagine replacing any of the pokemon in this scenario with Heatran, the #1 Pokemon in OU guaranteed to give zero shits about either Doom Desire or Fire Blast. If I bring in Terrakion while he brings in Keldeo, he now has slightly more options at least:
1) He could switch, and watch something die to CC + Doom Desire
2) He could stay in and risk a speed tie, which, even if he wins, will virtually kill his keldeo, who has now taken upwards of 70% from doom desire + 2 turns of sand + rocks.

The point of doom Desire is not to simply overload the opponent with shitty Steel type moves, it's to exploit the fact that the only types which can comfortably take Doom Desire have exploitable weaknesses, and use this fact to pressure the opponent into a no-win situation.

for this purpose is nyttyn entirely wrong: Jirachi is a horrible indication of Doom Desire's power, as it is both too weak in the SpA department to really pressure the opponent and entirely lacking in a solid secondary STAB to match up with it.

edit: also, in more niche scenarios it can be used to ensure a different pokemon's sweep; for example if your opponent's volc check is a Terrak, you can use Doom Desire to get safe setup while Terrak can't come in.

(Oh and also, please think of optics for a second. Doom Desire is the signature move of a legendary. We're supposed to avoid them so that we don't look like a bunch of drooling fanboys. It just looks unprofessional to an outsider.)
This is a reservation i too share with doom desire, and the reason why i would rather go with explosion. However, it is an interesting concept, and everyone hates us anyway because that's the hip thing to do on smogon so what the hell.

edit@alt: if we were to pick explosion, i wouldn't want a pokemon built around explosion so much as a pokemon which uses explosion on its sets because it serves it with utility (would you call gen IV Azelf 'built around explosion' for example?)
 
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My fear about Inferno is that if we find a way to make it reliable, it sounds a little game breaking. 100 base power and guarenteed burn sounds way too good- there's a reason it has only 50% accuracy. Though I imagine the main difficulty would be buffering the terrible accuracy, which limits the options for CAP 6 if we focus on very low accuracy moves. I feel it would either be overpowered if we gave the CAP the tools to abuse it, or it would be too limiting to what we can do with the CAP. I'm more confident about Future Sight and Explosion since they offer more in the means of creativity. Focusing on attacking moves with underrated effects would be a lot more interesting to me then focusing on moves with predictable and easy to abuse effects.
 
I like Reflect Type for a few reasons. First, it fits the concept very well. The effect of changing one's own type is relatively absent from OU, with the only exception I can think of being Imposter Ditto.
Second, it determines CAP 6's unique ability without determining a role. I seem to remember someone (nyttyn?) expressing concern over choosing a move that forces certain decisions regarding stats and role further down the line.
- How we can actually make a move work.
These are two possible uses of Reflect Type:
CAP 6 copies a type that allows it to take a defensive role by adding needed resistances (Team Preview helps with this a lot)
CAP 6 copies a type that gives STAB to one or two coverage moves it carried in anticipation of a certain Pokemon on the opponent's team.
The problem with this is that I don't feel experienced enough to comment on how much control these uses of the move leave with oneself and the opponent, because I'm convinced that this concept is made or broken by that control.
Third, Reflect Type is possibly the best move for interesting type discussion, and gives good discussion and choices in each of the other categories as well.
tl;dr Reflect Type fits the concept and doesn't force us into certain choices in future topics.
 

Birkal

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I want to get a little more specific about some of the thoughts I've been having today about various moves for us to consider.

In my mind, it would be advantageous to utilize moves that take advantage of the opponent switching for CAP 6. We have a variety of moves that we can use to force a switch. I believe the strongest of these is Soak, although Doom Desire and Reflect Type can serve the same purpose if we're smart about it. For this argument, let's talk about Soak. Say that CAP 6 uses Soak on the switch in. Now the opponent can either risk staying in and taking a pre-planned super effective move, or switch out to alleviate its Water-type shift. I think we will find success if we use that turn to gain some momentum and utilize some sort of set-up move. I know that capefeather is considerably against this move, but I'd like to bring up Belly Drum once again for this particular situation. Once the opponent switches, I'm firmly convinced that Belly Drum is the best underused move that CAP 6 could use. It would skyrocket its Attack stat and give it some fangs in the physical department. At that point, it could hit hard with some STAB attacks or go straight for the boom -- you see, one of the biggest downfalls we've had about discussing Explosion is that it isn't nearly as powerful as it used to be in previous generations. But at +6 Atk, Explosion will be doing more than enough to take out an opposing Pokemon. I know this situation I've provided is awfully specific, but I think you're getting the idea of how I could see all of these moves working in tandem.

I s'pose that means at this point, I'm leaning towards supporting Soak + Doom Desire + Belly Drum + Explosion. One thing Quanyails mentioned in her concept is that Sigilyph uses a variety of underused moves to suit its purpose. I see no reason why CAP 6 shouldn't use a plethora of these moves to accomplish its niche. Soak and Doom Desire cause a lot of expected switches: the former gets rid of its Water-typing, and the latter switches to a defensive type that resists Steel-type damage. Both of these situations are optimal, because we can use the predictable switching to give us momentum with other underused moves, like Belly Drum and Explosion. As for Belly Drum's negative effects, remember that Sigilyph has an ability that alleviates the negative effects of Flame Orb + Psycho Shift. We can alter abilities and stats to make its negative connotations not a significant issue. I think all four of these moves working in tandem (preferably not all on the same set), will allow us to explore rarely used moves while appealing to competitively minded players when making teammate selections.
 

DougJustDoug

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I think Belly Drum should be given a lot more consideration.

I realize capefeather said he's not sure the "effect" of losing 50% of your HP is the sort of underused effect that does this concept justice, but then he followed that up by encouraging Explosion -- whose main "effect" in singles is making the user faint entirely! If losing HP is a bad effect for this concept, then losing 100% of your HP is surely worse than losing 50%, right?

I personally don't think any move effect is inherently "better" or "worse" for the concept, other than the fact that the effect must be "not frequently used in the OU metagame" (quoting the concept directly). Even if Quanyails had more "positive" effects in mind when writing the concept, the name of the concept is "Show Me Your Moves", not "Show Me Your Effects". So I think the real focus is on little used moves that work differently than most other moves -- and Belly Drum fits the bill perfectly, in that regard.

Belly Drum offers a textbook case of risk and reward: You get the amazing benefit of instant Attacking awesomeness, but have to pay the terrible price of losing a huge chunk of health. This tradeoff is ripe for experimentation and debate, which is exactly what makes for great CAP projects!

Belly Drum has a few big positives over many other moves being considered:

On some lower tier pokemon, Belly Drum is viable in primary movesets already.
I think this is a good indicator that if we make an OU pokemon to use Belly Drum, we stand a pretty good chance of making a decent pokemon. I personally think we run a risk of making a broken Belly Drum pokemon, if we aren't careful. For MANY other moves we are considering in this thread, there is a legitimate concern that the moves simply cannot be saved. I think Belly Drum offers a very interesting challenge to us, because we could make something worthless or make something broken or anywhere in between. Most CAP's are that way, but this CAP could be extremely hard to pull off if we choose a hopeless move. Belly Drum is not hopeless.

Belly Drum does not dictate any particular typing, stats, ability, or other moves to make it viable.
This is huge for a CAP project, IMO. Too many moves we are discussing require specific combinations of typing, stats, etc. CAP thrives on having MULTIPLE CHOICES in every step. That's what makes each discussion interesting. With Belly Drum we don't have any limitations. Do we want to make it bulky so the HP loss doesn't doom us? Fine, we can do that with a vast array of typings, stat spreads, abilities, and moves. Do we want it to be a fast sweeper that can run through a few pokes at +6, even without much HP? Fine, we can do that with a vast array of typings, stat spreads, abilities, and moves. And how much base attack is reasonable for us to be effective with and without the +6 boost? Well that depends on how bulky and fast we are, and we can do that with a vast array of... you get the point. Belly Drum places almost no constraints on the project, which is a VERY good thing to support engaging discussions for the next few months.

Belly Drum will allow us to answer questions that are relevant to real competitive battling.
Many other moves we are discussing are gimmicky, at best. Even if we prove we can make the gimmick viable with this CAP, I'm not sure we really contribute much to current knowledge base of competitive pokemon. With Belly Drum we will be grappling with two concepts that are incredibly familiar to every competitive pokemon player:
  1. Getting a Big Attack Boost
  2. Losing lots of HP
We don't have to educate anyone about the general impacts of those two mechanics. Those are such basic building blocks of competitive battling, that right off the bat, almost every person who participates in this CAP will probably feel comfortable weighing in on discussion. Unlike say CAP 5 (which was a great project, don't get me wrong) where many discussion participants had to preface their comments with "I don't play sun teams very much, so I may be off base here..." or whatever. The concept and direction for CAP 5 was great, but I'm sure there were many people a little intimidated to speak out and debate with others. With Belly Drum, CAP 6 would have a concept anchor that everyone can sink their teeth into. And the effects of the move are SO polarizing, they are unquestionable in terms of definition. What I mean is -- +6 Attack is fucking amazing, and no one in the universe would dare say it isn't. On the flip side, losing half your HP fucking sucks hard, and no one would ever say different. So we have an unquestioned spectacular benefit, and an unquestioned terrible cost. That's the perfect source material for a huge community experiment and debate! And since Belly Drum is never used in OU, it fits beautifully with the concept.​


I hear a drum beating in the distance... and I think it signals a fun CAP project is approaching...
 
Ah, so many options!

Eh, I liked the idea of Me First to begin with, as it is a unique move which has arguable potential. Sadly, Yilx's logic is sound in the fact that reliance on the opponent is a hard obstacle to overcome, to the point where our CAP could become set-up bait, or manipulated. Still, I see value in Me First as it would halt many Pokemon such as Dragon types, or even gain boosts alongside the opposing Pokemon (for example, our CAPmon could Me First a Shell Smash Cloyster). Me First would limit our CAPmon's stats/ability, but that will hardly be a bad thing if the payoff is decent.

Heart Swap
I like it, although it would pose a problem over CAP optics, as we are taking a Legendary signature move (although let's not forget that Krilowatt already receives Heart Swap). The ability to stop sweeps efficiently, or to pass on attack/defense drops after using a move such as Close Combat or Overheat is great, and I'd welcome introducing Heart Swap to the OU metagame; the room is rarely/never seen in the Uber metagame, so we could learn a lot from it.

Doom Desire/Future Sight
No and no. Both these moves require too much manipulation, and I can hardly see how this can be viable when there are other, good Pokemon which can learn Future Sight/Doom Desire but choose not to. I see both these moves on the same line as Fly/Dig/Dive where the Pokemon is free to switch at the expense of the Pokemon not being immune to any attack after the move is used. It's certainly not a move I wish to be pursuing with this CAP.

We already saw what Riolu could do with Prankster Copycat, albeit still a bad Pokemon, although I don't know how that would translate to the OU metagame. Copycat is interesting and on the same lines as Me First, although it doesn't have to be used before the opponent, and doesn't have as much power. I personally see Me First as a better move to base our CAP around due to its boosted power and the fact that with Copycat we may have to take a hit first before using it.

Reflect Type
Ehhhhh. Relect Type is a pretty terrible move imo and there's good reason why it's not used ever. The loss of a STAB and the waste of a turn using it is damaging. Of course, you could say that it would be better for a wall as loss of a STAB is less important than changin to resisting type, but then you could be manipulated by the opponent. (Example: Terrakion uses Stone Edge, you use Reflect Type, you're now Steel type. Terrakion uses Close Combat and finishes you off). Not to mention the fact that the first attack you'll most likely be hit by is a super-effective one (unless on the switch), and so you'll probably be at a low enough health to be finished off next turn via a neutral move. Of course, Reflect Type could be useful in stopping choiced Pokemon, but I'd rather switch into a Pokemon resistant to the choiced move than use Reflect Type.

Heal Block
Nooo way. Heal Block is just not good enough to get on a Pokemon's moveslot. There are too little mons in OU which actually use healing moves to make this move competitively viable. The fact that the Pokemon can just switch also nullifies the effectiveness. Sure, it can stop leftovers for 5 turns, but is that really worth it?

Soak/Recycle
I'm bunching these two ideas together because they're a little stale. Soak was used effectively by Necturna, and so I see no reason to explore the move any further, while Recycle was used, albeit in a different way, by Malaconda, in the form of Harvest. These moves have potential, but we already saw what they could do in the OU environment.

Weather Ball
After a Pokemon we created which had a lot to do with weather, I doubt many of us would want to see a move based on weather. Furthermore, Weather Ball doesn't really teach us anything related to the concept other than "oh, this mon has good coverage in weather". The ability to create a Pokemon which can function in all weathers would be interesting to an extent though, although I fear that rain and sun usage will increase due to the extra BP that weather brings (150BP not factoring in potential STAB).

Power Trick
A decent option, although fairly situational. Power Tricking could leave us vulnerable to any attack, or offensively crippled (the variation between Attack and Defense has to be large in order for Power Trick to have any form of viability). Furthermore, it would be better sticking to being an offensive mon or defensive mon rather than wasting the turn Power Tricking, as that could lead to 4MSS.

Haze is nice. The turn it takes using it in order to reset your stat drops could be damaging, but its largest boon is its ability to stop sweepers or Pokemon from setting up. I honestly think that this move is worth more discussion, as it prevents you from becoming offensively worthless after using one Draco Meteor/Overheat/Close Combat/etc.

I have submitted a Gravity concept before and the response was "Gravity is just not viable enough to work as a concept". We have already seen what Landorus can do with Gravity (not very much, as it turns out), and I guess that's about as far as we can get with the move. Gravity is just not a very good move.

Trick Room/Tailwind
Again, this concept has already been covered by Reuniclus, and so not much needs exploring. We know what Trick Room can do and what the limits of the move are, there is nothing left relatable to the concept. It's the same with Tornadus and Tailwind.

Not really a fan. Snatch relies too much on the opponent and prediction for the move to be competitively viable; it could end up as a wasted turn more than anything else.


Egad ran out of time. More tomorrow.
 

alexwolf

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First of all Pwnemon i am noticing an aggressive tone in your post and i don't quite understand why. Anyway let's go to the arguments:
That wasn't my point at all; my point was that if Explosion is as common as you claim, then why can i not think of a single Pokemon in OU that I expect to run it?
I never claimed that it is common, i claimed that it has been used successfully in OU, and it has.
How to make it work in Gen V OU, since nothing we know of does.
We do know plenty of Pokemon and i have already mentioned them. Explosion is usually used on leads to cause as much damage possible and give a free switch-in to another Pokemon.
Booming forry, Azelf, Zong? I'm sorry, are you sure you're participating in a fifth gen CAP?

17:10 Pwnemon: !usage forretress ou
17:10 TIBot: #19 in OU | Usage: 9.58615% | Raw count: 157,596 | Weight: 0.645762336007
17:10 Pwnemon: !usage forretress moves
17:10 TIBot: ...| Explosion 12.007% |...
17:10 Pwnemon: !usage azelf ou
17:10 TIBot: #83 in OU | Usage: 1.40380% | Raw count: 22,337 | Weight: 0.667282835131
17:10 Pwnemon: !usage azelf moves ou
17:10 TIBot: ...| Explosion 44.595% |...
17:10 TIBot: #60 in OU | Usage: 2.19330% | Raw count: 36,245 | Weight: 0.642356422021
17:10 Pwnemon: !usage bronzong moves ou
17:10 TIBot: ...| Explosion 34.476% |...

Given your three examples added together, we get 2.53% usage. I won't even address the other examples because they hardly tell us how to effectively use explosion in OU.

For kicks i ctrl+f'd literally every ou pokemon's analysis (even the ones who didn't learn it, to see if they needed to watch out for it!) for "explosion" and found these mentions: Cloyster's OO, Forry's OO, Gengar's OO, Magnezone's OO, Metagross's OO, and a secondary slash on Ferro's CB set. (Notably, it was not mentioned at all for Lando-T, who has 145 Atk and the move, or Heatran, which has five different sets with the move in DPP)

17:14 Pwnemon: !usage ferrothorn moves ou
17:14 TIBot: Leech Seed 83.975% | Power Whip 70.537% | Stealth Rock 58.259% | Spikes 53.286% | Gyro Ball 40.783% | Thunder Wave 39.701% | Protect 35.011% | Other 18.448%

So, no, explosion is not as understood in gen V as you would have us believe. It's very much unexplored territory.
What is the point you are trying to make here? Usage and successful use are two entirely different things. I thought that the point of the concept that we chose was to find moves that haven't been used successfully in OU before. Explosion, even with only a little use, sees use on suicide leads.
I'd just like to point out the beautiful irony right here of you claiming (without basis) that explosion is so awful that nothing should ever consider basing a set around it, yet it's also far too ubiquitous to even consider for this project because everyone and their mother runs it and we know everything about it.
I never said what you mentioned in the bolded text. These are the exact words i used:
alexwolf said:
Some moves are just bad or mediocre and this is why they don't see a lot of usage. This is the case with Explosion too. It is a mediocre and situational move that has a few uses but nothing more to let it become a staple in OU. Not all unused moves (and Explosion isn't even really unused, at least the way i see it) have unexplored potential, some are just mediocre or bad.
Obviously Explosion is in the mediocre category, otherwise it wouldn't be used at all. Finally, i don't get why you keep giving so much attention to usage. Usage is not our prime concern from what i understood, successful use is.
The concept isn't to completely change the face of the OU metagame, it's simply to create a pokemon that succeeds thanks in part to an underused move. Would you call Trick Room an OU staple? How about Disable? Yet there are pokemon that run effective sets with each of these moves.
Ok, wrong wording here, i meant to say that even if we do create a successful Pokemon for OU with Explosion, i don't think that Explosion will play a big role on this. And even if it does play i don't think it would be something interesting as there is nothing unexplored about this move (which is logical actually as it is a pretty straight-forward move). The only way to make it more noticeable than it is would be to give it to a Pokemon that is actually good in OU (sorry Lickilicky) and gains STAB on it. This way the Pokemon could either use it to wallbreak or to do as much damage as possible after attempting a sweep, or even trying a lead set. What would be so interesting, new, and unexplored about this? It's a move that deals huge damage and KOs the user and it has been around long enough for all of us to see it in full and successful action.
Yet you support recycle. Let's just let that sink in for a second.
It would be good to put an actual argument in this sentence as otherwise it is both insulting and serves no purpose in a discussion.
 
I found it kind of odd that almost nobody came to Belly Drum's defense after I gave my opinion on it, until just now. Then again, I posted in the mid-afternoon so I guess a lot of people didn't get a chance to.

Anyway, there is a distinction between Belly Drum and Explosion. The power of Explosion applies only to Explosion, and this power can be compared to other moves in a moveset. Belly Drum, on the other hand, for most practical purposes, boosts the Pokemon wholesale, albeit with the HP cut. My issue with Belly Drum wasn't the fact that it had a drawback, but that the drawback seemed like the only thing really separating it from Swords Dance. Belly Drum as a set would conceivably be comparable to other sets, but it worries me somewhat that we'd be talking about the existence of other sets, if we're trying to make a Pokemon around Belly Drum.

That said, Birkal's post is a great defense of Belly Drum. I especially like the use of multiple underused moves to form a plausible tactic, without heavily specifying certain options in the later stages.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
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The obvious questions with Belly Drum will always be:
1) How can it abuse Belly Drum without being broken?
2) How can it successfully use Belly Drum without dying all the time when it tries to set up?

This is a delicate balance. We need to make something quite a bit stronger than ExtremeKiller Linoone, but obviously weaker than ExtremeKiller Arceus (which yes uses Swords Dance, but it's the closest OP comparison I could make). The only other relevant example to draw from beyond Linoone is BellyZard, and that's not much to study from, due to its quad-weakness to Stealth Rock and the fact that, like Linoone, plays in an entirely different tier.

However, this is a case where I actually think we have a few options. Most notably, we don't even need to be an ExtremeKiller, nor do I think we would want to be. +6 ExtremeSpeed isn't going to be beating Scizor any time soon, anyway.

Assuming CAP 6 is running something other than Life Orb or Silk Scarf (like a Sitrus Berry for example),
+6 252+ Atk STAB ExtremeSpeed OHKOs CB Scizor after Stealth Rock with 139 Atk
+6 252+ Atk un-STABbed ExtremeSpeed OHKOs CB Scizor after Stealth Rock with 233 Base Atk

So basically, to get through the #1 Revenge killer in OU, which resists ExtremeSpeed, we'd need ungodly, obviously overpowered Attack. In the mean time, CB Bullet Punch is likely doing quite a lot to this theoretical ExtremeKiller.


Instead there are many other ways to take advantage of this Belly Drum idea and tailor it to OU. For example, if CAP 6 were Fire/Ground, it would not need to worry about either Burns or (the most common form of) Paralysis, nor would it fear Scizor. It would be able to set up easily on things like Magnezone, Forretress, or Ferrothorn, but at the same time be held in check by its unfortunate Water and Ground weaknesses. This is almost certainly not the best typing we could come up with, but it does serve as a reminder that Belly Drum does not have to be accompanied by Normal and ExtremeSpeed. We can be more creative than that.

While I have reservations about Belly Drum's viability/brokenness being kept in balance, I think if we managed to pull it off, it would absolutely fulfill Quanyails' concept. The reality is we don't know much of anything about Belly Drum. Aside from Linoone and Charizard (and DPP Smeargle, which only used it to then Pass it), nothing really uses the move, and neither of those has been OU relevant since RSE.
 
I think Pwnemon hits the nail on the head regarding Doom Desire. I don't have a huge amount to add, just a couple of stray thoughts.

Firstly, in response to posts focusing on Doom Desire only, I think Future Sight remains a viable alternative. It's inferior, yes, in terms of raw power and arguably typing, but nothing unworkable; the point of this kind of move is how it works in tandem with other moves, so as long as CAP6 has attack options that synergize well - or even pairs well with other mons that do - the possibility exists that it can make effective usage of the move. But mainly, it's the vastly superior optics.

Secondly, the main thrust of my post - the effect of Doom Desire/Future Sight (DD/FS from hereon) could make for some quality discussion throughout the process. These moves set an event at a certain point in the game and force both players to spend 3 turns constantly working around it; the user has the chance to engineer an unavoidable assault, whereas the opponent has to consider the best course of action to prevent this. It could be a real study in high stakes decision making and forward planning. Some posters have suggested that the DD/FS are more trouble than they're worth to pull off, but I feel that as it's spread over three turns and not just one, the difficulty associated with Future Sight comes down to skilled play more than just coin-flip prediction situations, which is a legitimate beef against other moves like, to name probably the most egregious example, Snatch.

And lastly, just off the cuff, it could potentially interact well with other niche moves. Soak could be used to ensure a clean hit with Future Sight (or against a switch-in that would otherwise wall both DD/FS and CAP6's other options). Pwnemon has mentioned Explosion's decent synergy with DD. I haven't considered this last point in much depth, but there may well be others that work well. Anyway, suffice to say, I have been won over somewhat by DD/FS.
 

alexwolf

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I agree that Belly Drum is an interesting idea that fits the concept, although i think that there are more interesting ones. srk1214 regarding the calcs you did for how much Atk the CAP would need to get past Scizor i want to add something. It is very easy to wear down Scizor as it switches out a lot and usually lacks Lefties, meaning that two SR rounds on it are a very common condition to see. Assuming two SR rounds (which is not too much of a stretch) here is how much Atk you need to KO it with Extremspeed at +6 and with no item:

+6 252+ Atk Slaking ExtremeSpeed vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Scizor: 258-304 (75.21 - 88.62%) with an 112 Attack stat

And assuming we give to the CAP Silk Scarf then here is the Atk stat needed:

+6 252+ Atk Silk Scarf Slaking ExtremeSpeed vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Scizor: 301-355 (87.75 - 103.49%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock with an 108 Atk stat

or

+6 252+ Atk Silk Scarf Slaking ExtremeSpeed vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Scizor: 258-303 (75.21 - 88.33%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after two SR rounds with an 85 Atk stat

Some examples to show how a 80 BP move can potentially OHKO a fairly bulky Pokemon that is resistant to it with just an 85 Atk stat, after a Belly Drum obviously. I don't want to discourage the picking of Belly Drum with this, i just want to show how careful we should be to not break its user. However one thing that seems really interesting about Belly Drum is how to balance it in OU and yet make it good enough to have an impact on it or at least see some serious use. This sounds very challenging and for this reason Belly Drum is my third favorite choice after Gravity and Doom Desire.
 
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jas61292

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Well, there are a few things I want to go over, but let me start by saying, please, please can we not do Doom Desire? From my perspective it is probably the worst move we could possibly do out of the ones brought up. There are many reasons for this, but two are by far the biggest. First off, unlike all the other moves being thrown around (with the exception of like Trick Room), Doom Desire actually has a viable user in OU. Yes, it doesn't use it much. However, that is not the same as it not being viable. Seriously, go out and try Doom Desire Jirachi. Is it inferior to its other sets? Probably. But is it viable on an OU team? Definitely. In fact, when talking with people on IRC about what they would want in a Doom Desire user, ninety percent of what they say describes Jirachi to a tee. Sure, they might want more power, but who doesn't? The point is, we have exactly what we would be looking for already, so doing it would be pointless. It would be like reinventing the wheel because you have only ever seen them on airplanes. It doesn't matter that you rarely see it used when it is perfect for its purpose anyways.

Secondly, and even more importantly in my eyes, is that doing Doom Desire is about the worst thing we could ever do from a public relations standpoint. Anyone heavily involved in this project knows that we have discussed multiple times how the CAP project is perceived, and a lot of the regulations we have (movepool limits, for instance) are just as much about keeping us realistic as they are for competitive reasons. Even so, we still have lots of problems in this regard, as made clear by the policy review topics we have had. When it comes to the project optics, as we like to call it, having an entire project based around using the signature move of a legendary Pokemon is tantamount to suicide. We have so many interesting options out there (many of which I believe are significantly more interesting anyways, for the reasons above), so why would we ever choose the one that has so much potential for negative backlash. I care so much about this project, and I would hate to see us get bashed mercilessly for choosing a move like this, especially when I believe it is a move that wouldn't even promote that great discussions.

With that said, there are a few move that I really do like and think would be great for us to take a stab at. First among these is Belly Drum. DougJustDoug really covered most of what I would have said about it already, so I won't go too much into specifics. I just think that, unlike a lot of moves out there that would take most of the project to just make sure it even has a chance of working, Belly Drum is a move that will be fairly easy to get to work, allowing us to focus more on the different ways to use it, and what is most effective. While I don't think spending a lot of time trying to get a move to work is necessarily a bad thing, I feel that the more time we are forced to spend on that, the less options will really be available to us, and thus the less interesting the discussions we will have.

In that same vein, I think Explosion would be another fantastic move to go after. Explosion is similar to Belly Drum in that I believe it will be fairly easy to get a Pokemon that will enjoy using it, letting us spend more time on making it optimal in the metagame, and not just viable at all. Additionally, I feel Explosion has the advantage of being more of a 4th move. While most moves being talked about would require them to be the basis of entire sets, Explosion can easily be slapped on to just about any set, allowing us to try out different roles without having to focus too much on making sure that one set that relies on it is worth using. I think this would allow us more freedom to give options to our Pokemon, which would not be possible with other moves that are generally considered more outclassed.
 
With some of the stuff I'm seeing, it seems like we might be leaning towards a psuedo-phaser. Some of the options I've seen are very defensive, like Soak and Reflect Type - I'm not complaining, this might be the way to go.

But guys, almost any move can encourage Pokémon switching - hell, there's confusion and stat drops in the current metagame. Forcing switches with Soak wouldn't be any different, really.

Therefore, the Pokémon may need some way to trap the opponent if we are actually going to measure how these moves function. I'm not saying it has to be Shadow Tag; that would be helpful, but it's not the only option. I'll mention trapping moves once again.

/trapping moves rant
 

The Leprechaun

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With explosion gaining more and more support, and with it mentioned as a 'fourth slot move', i'd like to again show my support for Work Up. As has already been mentioned, one of the reasons explosion worked in DPP is because special walls would be destroyed by special attackers who didn't have to run any atk EVs. This tactic can be used again here with some kind of mixed sweeper utilising work up, being primarily special, but able to hand out +1 explosions whenever something walls it. Though the explosion might become predictable, a poke using protect or switching to a ghost gives this another opportunity to set up.
 

phoopes

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Well jas, Future Sight has been slashed right by Doom Desire a lot, and if we used Future Sight it really puts both of your concerns to rest. While I don't really agree with you saying Jirachi is a viable user of Doom Desire (since it's outclassed by other sets, but that's a another argument for another day), Future Sight is hardly used at all. Only five OU Pokemon get Future Sight, and they all don't even sniff the move in their sets, instead going for roles like a fast sweeper in Alakazam or offensive Trick Room with Reuniclus. And most of the other Pokemon that get Future Sight are just bad competitively, forever in the lower tiers. Future Sight can have a roll in a Pokemon as a switch punisher, wallbreaker, or something different, like I mentioned in previous posts. The little used effect in Future Sight is still a viable concept for CAP 6, even if you hate the better alternative in Doom Desire. Also, if we do end up going with Future Sight instead of Doom Desire, it kind of makes your whole second paragraph concerning CAP "public relations" moot.
 
Secondly, and even more importantly in my eyes, is that doing Doom Desire is about the worst thing we could ever do from a public relations standpoint. Anyone heavily involved in this project knows that we have discussed multiple times how the CAP project is perceived, and a lot of the regulations we have (movepool limits, for instance) are just as much about keeping us realistic as they are for competitive reasons. Even so, we still have lots of problems in this regard, as made clear by the policy review topics we have had. When it comes to the project optics, as we like to call it, having an entire project based around using the signature move of a legendary Pokemon is tantamount to suicide. We have so many interesting options out there (many of which I believe are significantly more interesting anyways, for the reasons above), so why would we ever choose the one that has so much potential for negative backlash. I care so much about this project, and I would hate to see us get bashed mercilessly for choosing a move like this, especially when I believe it is a move that wouldn't even promote that great discussions.
Yeah no. I'm pretty sure the worst moves for optics would be the moves that conjure images of noobish ladderers and oversimplified battle tactics (i.e. Belly Drum, Inferno). Doom Desire and Heart Swap are some of the more multifaceted and interesting competitive moves in the game, and the average knowledgeable battler is smart enough to see that, rather than dismiss it because it was cool in the anime or whatever. Regardless, we have policy to deal with optics, optics shouldn't influence actual voting decisions, and this strikes me as trying to stifle discussion through scaremongering.

(That said, I'm not particularly enthused about either.)
 

Yilx

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First of all, let me make my stance clear; I do NOT support NOR oppose Future Sight/Doom Desire. To all the people hating on Doom Desire/Future Sight because of reasons like "You do nothing for 2 turns" and "It hits later, not viable", please open up your eyes and look onto the other side of the spectrum before bashing the move without thinking or bias. Seems like everyone's mainly the people who don't look past "2 turns omg" are getting the wrong idea on the move.

  • You DO not "do nothing" for the 2 turns that it "takes" to hit. You're supposed to use the delayed hit to manipulate the match according to your momentum, both players JOLLY WELL know they're going to get hit 2 turns later by a move, both players try to play around or against it.
  • Your opponent is not "Free to select" what gets hit by the god damn move. If he only has mons X and Y that can take the hit comfortably you'd bet your ass you'd try to have out mon A which can set up on X and Y easily. Of course this means he would try to not let mon A switch in but "2 turns later!"
  • DD/FS are NOT attacking moves. They're utility moves like Dragon Tail, Scald and Icy Wind.
  • You are free to make moves while DD/FS hit. This is the point that people seem to miss out on the most. The match continues as normal, except the move you made now hits 2 turns later; in a freaking turn-based game like mons 2 turns can make all the difference in the world.
  • DD and FS can still reach 150/210 BP with STAB respectively and those are very big numbers.
  • If you can force your opponent into using Protect/Sub then wouldn't it be a PERFECT opportunity to bring in your frail sweeper or set up SD/NP/whatever?
 
Gravity: Well, I don't really know how we could build a mon that abuses gravity better than landorus...
We wouldn't need to make a better Gravity abuser than Lando, we would need to make something that makes Gravity teams as a whole more viable. When considering Gravity, we should look beyond the move's basic mechanics, and look at how CAP6 could interact with other team members. The project would likely focus on Gravity as a team archetype and play style, rather than just one 'mon that just so happens to work very well when Gravity is in effect.
 
Doom Desire is a dreadful move.

Honestly, I hate to go on a huge rant about a single move, but I actually can't believe the momentum this move is getting. Trouble is, nobody is really analysing the move properly. We're all being brainwashed by the idea of a high base power move that has poor distribution and a unique effect and we're not actually looking at how it works.

Let's break down exactly how this move is going to work in reality.
  • Doom Desire will take 2 turns to hit
  • In those 2 turns, the user can't use Doom Desire again and the opponent is free to switch
This is accurate, but it isn't as bad as you are making it out to be, though. This isn't like Solarbeam or Sky Attack where it takes two turns to do one turn's worth of damage. The damage is delayed, but there is only one turn being spent to do it. The delay is a drawback, sure, but it's a different one than the typical -2 SpA, which makes it interesting. For instance, you can only fire one Leaf Storm before you are debuffed, but with Doom Desire you could fire off a Leaf Storm/Psycho Boost/Overheat on the same turn as Doom Desire hits, allowing you to not only get two 210 BP attacks without switching, but get both in one turn (you could also attack the turn before DD and then switch to a counter the turn it hits.

  • Steel is a dreadful offensive type. Water, Steel, Electric and Fire all resist it. We see plenty of those types in OU: I'd wager the average team would have at least 2 Steel resits, without even trying. The only types it hits for Super Effective damage are Ice and Rock. They're some of the rarest types in OU
  • Considering all this, the odds of getting a Super Effective hit with Doom Desire are abysmal. Even getting a neutral hit is going to require careful play that goes way beyond 1 turn prediction. It's very much in your opponents hands (and as Birkal rather eloquently described, this is something we should avoid).
There really isn't much chance of landing a Super Effective hit with any move with these mechanics, the fact that Steel lacks immunities is probably the best we could hope for, and the fact that it supplies a superb defensive typing (especially in dual-types which CAPs typically are) is a bonus to a strategy that requires staying in multiple turns. This only gives your opponent slightly more control than a normal attack, as the only way for them to neutralize it involves switching into a wall and going on the defensive, which is more than is even required from, say, Perish Song, and is typical of most attacks. A move with 140 BP coming from STAB and a good SpA stat is going to require more than a resist to shrug off, anyway, and regardless of type matchup it is creating serious pressure to switch to a limited set of pokemon, which is something you can then take advantage of. A large portion of pokemon who like Doom Desire are not going to like Volt Switch, for instance.

  • While you wait for Doom Desire to hit, what do you do?
The short answer is anything because we are building this mon, but i'll give some examples. There is a lot you could do with just Protect and Volt Switch/U-turn/a normal switch.

- Doom Desire>Coverage Move>Coverage Move (punish whatever Steel resist decides to switch in with the appropriate coverage move)

- Doom Desire>Protect>Next strongest attack (Wallbreak by combining two powerful attacks in one turn)

- Doom Desire>Protect>Volt Switch (catch their Steel resist if it waits till the last moment to switch in, now it it took Volt Switch, Doom Desire, Hazards, and will likely get forced out.)

- Doom Desire>Volt Switch>Setup Sweeper (choose a setup mon that sets up on their Steel resist, now they have to choose between letting you set up for one turn or switching to something that doesn't like Doom Desire as well)

- Doom Desire>Volt Switch>anything else (you can bring in literally anything before Doom Desire hits; there will be ways to take advantage of this.)

- Doom Desire>Protect>Roar (if their best resist is in it is guaranteed not to be the one tanking Doom Desire).

- Doom Desire>Volt Switch (hits Ground-type)>Protect (DD hits Ground-type for heavy damage)

- Volt Switch>Catch Heatran trying to switch in on Doom Desire>Dugtrio

The best move depends on how quickly they switch in the pokemon they want to take DD with. With the right support and coverage moves, and switch-in opportunities (not hard for a Steel-type) you can punish various responses to DD and use the pressure it creates to get some kills.

  • Let's assume we're using a Steel type so we can get STAB. Do we not give it any other STABs to encourage Doom Desire? In that case, what the heck is it meant to do while waiting for Doom Desire to hit? But if we give it another viable Steel STAB, then what's to stop it running it over Doom Desire? Or are we wasting 2 slots on the same type? None of these options work.
Don't pigeonhole this into being a standard, coverage-based attacker, as that's not really the way Doom Desire would need to be played. It's all about creating pressure and punishing your opponents reaction to that pressure, so the movepool (and everything else) would be based around that, rather than sweeping. We have a 140 BP STAB move at our disposal that can hit at the same time as any other attack (even from one of your teammates). So I don't see why you would want to just slap Flash Cannon and coverage on such a mon in the first place; I don't agree that it would automatically outclass Doom Desire, as Flash Cannon is basically not going to get neutral OHKOs, and so isn't going to put on as much pressure, and has none of the cool mechanics to really let you take advantage of that presure. Flash Cannon would just give you a generic special attacker with cruddy STAB. I don't think it's that much of an issue.

As for other STAB options, I do think that something with too high BP would indeed run the risk of overshadowing Doom Desire, such as Surf or Fire Blast. However, there are types (Flying, Ghost, Grass, Rock, Normal) that can get away with having low BP special STAB, so there are still plenty of choices, even without breaking standard movepool rules (and if we don't care about that then even better). Coverage is probably more important, anyway. It really wouldn't take that much coverage to accomplish what we want.
  • No abilities assist Doom Desire specifically. No other moves assist it specifically. There's nothing we can do to make it a better option than Flash Cannon. Frankly, I'd rather run Hidden Power Steel.
This just takes creativity. Not every CAP pokemon has had an insanely obvious ability for its concept from the outset. The fact that this isn't perfectly obvious means there would be much better discussion for that phase, anyway, which is one of the main points of CAP as a whole. We don't need something that specifically buffs DD anyway, as we are just going to balance stats against damage calcs in the end, anyway. A Defensive ability that allows us more setup opportunities could fit the bill better than a hypothetical "make Doom Desire stronger because we want to use Doom Desire".
I'm trying to keep an open mind, so if someone can actually explain to me how this can be competitively viable, please feel free to. But right now I just feel like everyone is overlooking this moves competitive inadequacies because it's rare and "cool".

(Oh and also, please think of optics for a second. Doom Desire is the signature move of a legendary. We're supposed to avoid them so that we don't look like a bunch of drooling fanboys. It just looks unprofessional to an outsider.)
Wanting to use things that are rare and cool is an intrinsic part of the concept we chose, sure we are making certain that we choose a move that gives rise to discussion and learning in good CAP fashion, but lets not pretend we aren't all balancing "rare/cool factor" vs. "applicability/viability" in this thread. The latter is what makes it a good CAP project we will learn from, the former is what makes it a CAP project that anyone cares that they learned something from.

As for looking like drooling fanboys, this move goes all the way back to Gen3, and has a very novel mechanic. I think it would be obvious that we are focusing on the move for its novel mechanic and not because we collectively have a huge boner for Jirachi. Also, there is a big difference between basing a project on a legendary signature move, and using legendary signature moves for minor or nonexistent benefit to an unrelated project. "What would X move be like if it were on a pokemon with different Stats/Typing/Movepool/Ability?" is a valid question to ask. The alternate scenario is more like answering "V-Create/Bolt Strike/Psystrike" in response to the question posed by a different concept. Throughout CAP we have avoided giving CAPs legendary signature moves to support their STAB, take out certain counters, or just round out certain ideal coverage combos. This is because it would be a cop-out to assume the ubiquity of powerful legendary moves in the premise of answering the concept of that project. Building a project around a specific legendary move is not a cop-out, however, especially when many of us doubt even the viability of the move. We would be building a CAP to take this rare, novel, and interesting move and insert it into the OU metagame. I don't see this as being too much different than the sketch concept.
 
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If the qualms of Doom Desire not hitting much for decent damage is a problem, perhaps there are some work arounds. For instance, if Doom Desire was combined with Tinted Lens, it would hit everything bar Heatran and Magnezone for neutral damage, so the idea of the opponent switching becomes less problematic. That could actually be quite viable on a bulky steel type and really create an interesting battle dynamic.

Has anyone mentioned Curse as a boosting move? It was much more viable back in 4th gen but you don't see it ever now.
Ferrothorn has a niche Curse set that both increases its great physical bulk, raises attack and powers up Gyro Ball further by slowing it down. Combined with a secondary STAB, preferably a priority move, a viable Curse-mon could be really interesting.
 

Deck Knight

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Going to rip Explosion to shreds.

Explosion is essentially the antithesis of this concept. We already know everything there possibly is to know about Explosion, and have had 4 generations where Explosion was a top tier move. The only reason it isn't used in Gen V to the same extent is that it got a massive mechanical nerf - and yet it's STILL powerful enough to be on OU sets of commonly prepared-for Pokemon. Explosion covers absolutely zero new ground, and to top it all off we'd be basing a project around a Pokemon whose key feature is destroying itself in a one-for-one trade-off.

Of the moves remaining, since Power Trick seems thoroughly shot down, I'm a big fan of Gravity because it's one of the few moves with a risk / reward structure that is more apt to benefit a team built around it than other moves. Rain teams are already using Rain to make Thunder / Hurricane -- Acc, Gravity enables different threats to get similar benefits. Gravity combines well with attacks, with status moves, with attack types (Ground specifically, although it also disables Bounce and Hi Jump Kick, two rare but seen moves), and Gravity is a move that you can center a strategy around.

Truthfully with Belly Drum I think Necturna gave us an example of a set that worked, and I don't know how we would improve upon it - it had a damaging physical healing move, STAB priority, and a strong coverage move.

Doom Desire is not only terrible PR, but also is too reliant on a specific type (Steel) and stat (Special Attack) to be the basis for a good project. Future sight is the same except its also too weak to pull it off.

One move I think might warrant discussion is Torment. Torment is a very uncommon move, only Heatran uses it in a notable set, and even then rarely. Torment's problem is its a bit more niche in its move denial than Taunt, but nonetheless its a move that places a lot fewer restrictions on the Pokemon that other moves discussed.
 

Jaiho

bandy legged troll
Wanting to add to scoopapa's analysis, there is even a precedent for using unique moves on CAP Pokemon. Kitsunoh and Stratagem both got unique moves that never even existed. Krillowatt got Heart Swap as well. Necturna got to use the previously unique sketch, so it could literally use any single move it wanted, including Sacred Fire, which is one of the main movesets listed. on top of that Necturna got Horn leech, which is actually a Sawsbuck only move. While not viable, Argohnaut was randomly given octazooka, which is a signature move too. Syclant learned the practically exclusive Tail Glow, which was oft considered Manaphy's signature move in Gen 4 because Volbeat sucks. It also got the non-existent Mountaineer as an ability. Cyclohm got a signature ability in Rebound as well. Aurumoth got the Zoroark line's signature ability Illusion too.

That is 8 out of 16 CAPs with a signature move or ability, either made up or from another Pokemon. I don't see any problem with using Doom Desire, it is a hidden gem of a move that is stuck with a Pokemon that doesn't have the stats to pull it off, that also has an ability that makes other moves on it much better. I don't think any person who understands how competitive play works will complain, while those who do are the type of people who say that all legendaries should be banned from OU. Those are the type of people whose opinions shouldn't affect the project anyway.
 

Birkal

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Stepping in as a CAP moderator to say that Doom Desire, as a signature move of a legendary Pokemon, will be chosen as allowed or disallowed at the Topic Leader's discretion (capefeather). Feel free to continue discussing the move to either convince him or not convince him, but understand that he will have the final say. If you have an issue with this rule, perhaps consider joining the CAP Policy Review Committee and bringing this up in a policy thread. Dems be da rules, folks.
 
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